As new lawyers are deluged with talk of social media from the True Believers, who just happen to have something to sell, those who’ve hitched their empty wagon to it and now try desperately to defend their choice and those who tried and failed, and are now very angry about the “lies” they were told, there aren’t many voices that offer an assessment without any ax to grind or horse in the race. Matt Brown at Chandler Criminal Defense offers an honest view.
Running a small firm isn’t for the faint of heart. Running it the way Adrian and I run our criminal defense practice seems make it even tougher. You won’t see Brown & Little billboards. Clients don’t go on TV telling the world what we did for them. We have no phone book ads, no radio spots, and I can’t remember the last time we put money on the books for our Google AdWords account. If anything, this blog seems to scare away prospective clients.
Marketing for us is almost entirely socializing with other lawyers, remaining active in things we’d be doing whether we were lawyers or not, and most importantly, doing the best we can in every case. There’s a big downside to that kind of marketing.
Brown & Little came about when Matt and Adrian decided to hang out a shingle straight out of law school, a dubious proposition under the best of circumstances. Matt knew the downside, and chose to do it anyway, proving himself to be the exception to the rule. The lesson here is that it can be done if you’re smart, hard-working and truly dedicated to the proposition; the lesson is not that anybody can do it.
The things we don’t do create the illusion of stability. The ignorant count Twitter followers like they’re money in the bank and calls from the back page of the phone book like they’re paying clients, not people in need of free advice without any intention of hiring a private lawyer. Oh what I’d give for the bliss of not knowing better!
These are huge lessons that hungry lawyers with decades more experience have yet to learn. Matt’s experience mirrors my own, with the worst words to open a phone call being “I found you on the internet.” These words almost invariably mean that the person calling has neither a case of interest nor a desire to retain counsel. As for twitter, the best that can be said is that it’s a place to grab a few laughs.
Matt gets down to the bottom line:
A man of faith I am not, yet each month the phone seems to ring and provide me peace of mind. Some months are good, others not so good. You don’t which which one it’s going to be until it’s too late. Luckily, they’ve never been so bad that Brown & Little couldn’t cope. I feel blessed, but I never feel secure, no matter how much money’s in the bank. It’s a strange sensation knowing that the source of your income in the future is people you’ve probably never met coming from sources you probably don’t expect, and there’s no guarantee anyone will come in the door at all.
That’s the way it feels until the day you shut off the lights for the last time, You never know when, or if, the phone will ring again. If you work hard and do right by your clients, it does. It’s not the number of twitter followers, and certainly not the number of blog posts you’ve written, that assures your continued viability.
There are plenty of puffed claims by new lawyers of how social media made them fabulous, but Matt Brown is telling the real story, unvarnished by the self-serving deceit. Others, operating under the marketing principle that you are what Google says you are, can lie to others (and themselves) all they want about the great success they enjoy because they’ve become Social Media Rock Stars. They live in a fantasy, but feigning success won’t give them what Matt Brown has.
Matt is one of a number of new lawyers to be found blogging and twitting, but he stands out for his honesty and sincerity. Unlike so many, who spend their time crafting a careful marketing online persona or compensating for the apparent hole in their real life where there should be flesh and blood people, Matt has never succumbed to the shameless touting and self-promotion, or whining about how hard and inconvenient the practice of law can be. He never takes his eye off the reason he’s there, to defend his clients.
I’ve never stood next to Matt as he tried a case, nor read his motions or briefs, so I can’t talk to the quality of his work product, but if there’s anything to be learned from attitude, understanding and work ethic, Matt Brown is the exception to the rule. If he’s half the lawyer he sounds like, he’s going to be one heck of a criminal defense lawyer.
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This is the kind of post that the marketers and social media evangelists hope no one reads. They don’t want anyone to know that the way Matt is building his practice is viable. You and I talk about this frequently – that building a great practice is something that takes time and includes building a reputation as a good lawyer. The marketers and social media gurus offer the appearance of a great practice to those that will mostly be average lawyers at best.
I first “met” Matt when he wrote about something I said on my blog. I discovered it by looking at the hits that day to my blog. Matt never emailed me or asked me to read his blog. He never waved his hands and said “look what I did, I wrote about you.” He just wrote.
What Matt represents is the response to those who look at me, and you, and say “yeah but you guys have been around for a while (especially you Greenfield, you’ve been around since, well, nevermind) you don’t need to market yourselves to death.”
What they don’t realize is that we did, and do what Matt does. We decided that the type of practice we wanted to have would be more about quality than trying to replicate the Vegas Strip.
Unfortunately, too many are taken by the flashing lights, with their names flashing.
Yesterday, I wrote about how disgusted I’ve grown with the self-promotion, lame thinking and general crap being posted online in furtherance of pleasing the social media gods. Then I look at a young lawyer like Matt Brown, and my faith in the future of the profession is restored. There are real lawyers out there, just working hard and doing the best for their clients, coming up the ranks.
Not that you likely care, but when you take note of those doing it the right way, it lends even more credibility to your criticism of those who aren’t. Since you were thinking about highlighting some of the worst of the worst maybe you could balance that by simultaneously contrasting them against the best of the best.
Incidentally, the uncertainty Matt describes is one of the main things that has and may forever keep me out of private practice. I want to worry about the law, not the business of it.
Wow, this is so complimentary I’m a little embarrassed.
It’s reassuring to hear confirmation from you that a business model like ours can (and does) work. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked with lawyers of all ages who claim they’ve found some magic source of paying clients that’s going to bring them fame and fortune. It makes my modest plan of just trying to do a good job look quaint. I’m always relieved when I see them a month later and they’ve moved on to a new magic source.
Unfortunately, it’s also unsettling hearing from you that the uncertainty never goes away. Halfway through reading the post, I secretly hoped you’d say that after a decade or so, it’s smooth sailing.
Sorry to say it doesn’t end. Some months you’re on fire. Other are cold as ice and you think the phone is never going to ring again. It does, but the feeling never changes.
I do, Lee. I read them, link to them, put them on my blawgroll. But I don’t consider doing an excellent job at something to be “special”. I consider it to be what we’re supposed to do. I expect it. Failure to do so is the problem. Have low expectations of people and you will never be disappointed.
And private practice isn’t for everyone. As Matt said, it’s not for the faint of heart. There is no paycheck on Fridays.